Elia Viviani (Liquigas-Cannondale) broke the Omega Pharma-Quick Step/Saxo Bank monopoly on stage wins at the Tour de San Luis on Saturday, blazing to victory in the bunch gallop at the conclusion to stage six. One of Viviani's five teammates at the event is American Ted King, one of a handful of North Americans racing in South America's biggest stage race. King was ecstatic post-race at his Italian teammate's win, the ProTour squad's first of 2012.
Earlier that day, prior to the start of the 201km race in blast furnace heat, Cyclingnews spoke to King moments after had arrived on location in Lujan where he was still visibly weary from what had been a rather dismal conclusion to the previous day's racing - after getting off of the mountain top finish on Mirador del Sol there remained a 200km bus transfer back to the hotel.
King perked up, however, and discussed his horror transfer, his Eddy Merckx-esque time trial (done on his road bike), his impressions of racing in Argentina, as well as tipping teammate Viviani for the win. It would still be a bittersweet afternoon on Saturday at the finish in Quines for Liquigas-Cannondale, however, for even though Viviani prevailed on the stage, new recruit Cayetano Sarmiento crashed heavily and broke his collarbone.